


promised spring

by rangerhitomi



Category: Cardfight!! Vanguard
Genre: First Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M, New Years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-14
Updated: 2018-09-14
Packaged: 2019-07-12 03:21:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15986567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: Kai has always believed himself unworthy of Aichi's love. After all he's done to hurt him, how could he ever trust himself not to do it again?And besides, he's the one in love with Aichi. There's no need to breach the comfortable distance in their relationship......until Aichi asks him what kind of person he loves, and he discovers his complicated feelings for Aichi aren't really complicated at all.





	promised spring

**Author's Note:**

> A little bit of cold weather longing to keep my mind off the heat.

Too many people pack the paths to the shrine, locals and tourists alike; most wear several layers for warmth and stride along with their hands buried in their pockets and their faces masked by scarves. 

Like those around him, Kai wears a jacket and a scarf, hands in his pockets. But the chilly winter air doesn’t bother him, nor do the crowds. Everyone who approaches him seems to walk in a wide berth around him, and he strolls along easily. 

He’s visiting the shrine out of habit more than anything. It’s the same, year after year, with his good luck charms bringing him nothing but pain, each new year worse than the last. He doesn’t let himself wonder how this year could possibly be worse than what he’d been through in the past several months. Not after what he’d done.

“Kai?”

The soft voice stands out among the noise of the crowd swarming up the stairs to the shrine. Half of Kai yearns to turn and acknowledge it. The other half is afraid to.

“Kai!” 

He doesn’t have a choice, now; Aichi, with his wind-chapped face and tousled hair and too-light jacket for this cold, has caught up with him.

“Happy New Year, Kai!”

Kai nods and returns the greeting, voice fading when he realizes that Aichi, already wearing an inadequately warm jacket, is also wearing a scoop-neck shirt that exposes his collarbones to the elements. 

“Aren’t you cold?” His voice is stern.

“Eh?” Aichi places a hand to his bare neck. “Ah, I guess… a little.” He half-laughs and shrugs a shoulder, a tiny  _ hm  _ that clearly tells Kai  _ but don’t worry. _

Kai worries. He can’t help  _ but, _ now. “You’re going to get sick.” 

“Ah, it’s okay, I-- oh!”

He cuts off, blinking in surprise as Kai removes his own scarf and drapes it over Aichi’s shoulders and neck. Kai curses his fingers for spending too long adjusting the scarf. 

Aichi’s surprise has faded now. He smiles, closes his eyes, and grips the scarf with his fingers. Breathes deep. “Thank you, Kai.” Another laugh, this time more of a giggle. “Ah… I smell like you.”

It’s a bizarre sentiment that makes Kai’s face turn crimson. He turns away, pressing his hand to his forehead. He’s hot. They had stood close together before. Kai has even held Aichi in his arms, and Aichi, Kai. But in those situations, Aichi was either distraught or unconscious, and surely just by standing near Kai he hadn’t paid close attention to Kai’s  _ scent.  _

Though, judging by Aichi’s reaction, he must have a nice smell.

“Is something wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Kai says with more force than intended. He exhales. “Let’s go.” Softer, this time.

“Okay!” 

Aichi walks close to Kai, somehow managing to avoid being swept up in the crowd, though once or twice he had to grip Kai’s elbow to avoid being separated. The crowds thinned closer to the shrine and the farther from the food stands along the way, and Kai fell into an easy stroll, Aichi only a step behind. 

“We’ve been through a lot this year, haven’t we, Kai?” 

The comment doesn’t take him off guard. He is, after all, having identical thoughts. 

“Mm,” he replies noncommittally. 

“I think…” Aichi trails off as they approach the shrine. He tilts his head at Kai. “I think I wouldn’t have been able to get through it without you.”

_ Interesting,  _ he thinks as Aichi presses his hands together in front of the shrine and begins to pray,  _ considering I was the one who put you through it in the first place. _

They’ve had this conversation, more than once, but Aichi has failed to convince Kai to put it behind him every time.

Rather than joining Aichi in prayer, Kai watches him. What was the point in praying when he was sure anyone he prayed to would be ashamed of what he’d become?

He doesn’t know what Aichi is praying about. 

When Aichi is finished, he thanks Kai for waiting. Kai offers to walk Aichi home--he does, of course, still have on Kai’s scarf, Kai tells himself. 

There’s a bounce in Aichi’s step that wasn’t there before; Kai knows Aichi well enough to recognize that Aichi is nervous. He’s talking, a lot, and fast. 

Kai listens, and only inserts short responses when it’s clear Aichi is looking for one. 

They’re only a few blocks from Aichi’s house when the conversation shifts and Kai can no longer simply enjoy  _ listening.  _

“Kai, um, what kind of person… do you like?”

Kai stops walking.

There’s no doubt the question isn’t asking “what sort of person do you want as a friend” or “what kinds of people can you tolerate,” but “what kind of person would you fall in love with” and the question is finally so unexpected, the answer so  _ obvious, _ the answer  _ standing right in front of him,  _ that Kai can’t form a response. 

He couldn’t say  _ you, _ because…

...because…

_ Why not? _

“I think,” Kai says, not looking at Aichi, “that I like… strong fighters. Passionate fighters.”

Tokura Misaki had once told him that her classmate had grown frustrated with the Miyaji Cardfight Club members’ inability to communicate feelings in any way that didn’t involve Vanguard, and now Kai understands that classmate’s frustration. He didn’t say  _ you, _ but he may as well have, because the qualifier for what Kai considers  _ strong and passionate  _ really boils down to one Sendou Aichi. 

“I see.” Aichi places a finger to his lips and smiles. “Me too.”

And suddenly Kai understands  _ everything. _

Aichi is trying to take a step forward in their relationship, and Kai is three steps behind, just like he’s always been, trying to catch up to someone he could never really catch up  _ to.  _ And now that Aichi has turned around, waiting for Kai to take those last few steps and finally reach him, Kai finds that he’s rooted himself so deeply in the past that he’ll be stuck there forever.

“Aichi,” Kai begins, and he hates himself all over again, because Aichi is ready to take that first step with him, and Kai is terrified to follow. “Your type… should be someone who can keep up with you.”

Maybe if he was any good at communicating with straightforward words instead of with Vanguard analogies, he never would have hurt Aichi to begin with.

“The type of person I like is my true rival,” Aichi replies, true to form, and Kai has to turn away because his frustration and desire are battling in his heart and it’s surely showing in his face.

_ Use actual words, Kai.  _ “I can’t be that person, Aichi.”

The lengthy silence is too much. He squeezes his eyes shut, glad that Aichi can’t see his face.

“Why?” 

It’s not a hard question to answer. “I’ve hurt you, more than once. I hurt everyone I’m around. I can’t… trust myself not to do it again. I’m best alone, you’re best with someone who can give you the unconditional support that I can’t.”

He hears a soft stomp, followed by the feeling of Aichi’s hand on his jacket, pulling him around with surprising firmness. His eyes snap open as he comes face-to-face with Aichi. Tiny droplets glisten at the corners of his eyes. 

“Stop that, Kai. Stop that.” Aichi shakes his head at the ground before tightening his hold on Kai’s arm. “You hurt me, yes. I hurt you, too. You forgave me. I forgave you. Damn it, Kai…” 

Kai has heard this before. Aichi knows it, too. But somehow, this digs deeper at his already fragile heart, knowing that Aichi  _ loves  _ him.

Knowing that he feels the same. 

“If you only see me as your rival, if you only see me as your friend, I understand! I respect that, Kai. But please,  _ tell  _ me that, don’t tell me this same old nonsense that you deserve eternal loneliness as penance for your sins. I can’t… I can’t handle that. I just-- if you don’t want to hurt me anymore, Kai, just… just tell me. Don’t tell me to accept someone else, not when-- not when I love you the most!”

Aichi’s tears don’t fall. Instead, he looks up at Kai with  _ those  _ eyes, that defiant stare, that determination that Aichi certainly never had when Kai first met him. 

Aichi shakes his head slowly, maintaining that unblinking eye contact. “You’ve only been alone because you shut yourself away. But you don’t ever…  _ ever  _ have to be alone again, Kai.”

The last of Kai’s reluctant resolve shatters.

Aichi’s strength, his determination, and his resolve had always attracted Kai to him. Kai had attributed this sensation to a feeling of relief that he had finally found someone who could match his skill as a fighter. 

But it was more than that, he now realizes; having never known any other emotions, he had failed to recognize Aichi’s earnestness, his sympathy, his kindness, his intellect, as being more powerful traits than simply being good at Vanguard. 

Aichi, too, must see something else in Kai, traits he, drowning in his own self-loathing and guilt, couldn’t see in himself. 

The tears linger there, at the corners of Aichi’s eyes. 

Kai lifts his hand to Aichi’s face and wipes them away,

Aichi’s face warms at the touch; his mouth opens in a surprised  _ oh _ as he turns his gaze upward toward Kai, who convinces himself in that moment to touch his hand to Aichi’s face and press his lips to his forehead.

_ I promise to protect you… from my own weakness. _

“I understand,” he whispers. He leans back, but lets his fingers slide along Aichi’s face until they wrap in his hair.

It’s soft, like everything else about Sendou Aichi.

“With you, I’m never alone.”

If the smile on Aichi’s face didn’t melt his heart already, the feel of Aichi’s hand on his does.

He’s never held hands with someone before, not like this. They spend a couple of awkward minutes moving their fingers around as they walked, trying to figure out the most comfortable position for both of them. Kai, who has a significant height advantage, had to bend down at first so Aichi could swing his hand comfortably; Aichi, sensing this, finally bends his elbow and slides his hand against the palm of Kai’s hand so Kai could squeeze Aichi’s hand with his fingers. 

“It’s really amazing, being at your side like this,” Aichi remarks as they walk, arms pressed together. 

Kai nods, mouth dry. “This is… a new feeling for me. I don’t have words for it, but being with you…”

“I want to do this again.” 

Not just again, Kai thinks, but again and again, every day for the rest of their lives, each day like the first. The new, fresh feeling of being in love… he never wanted to lose it. 

“Our lives,” Kai says, thinking about how to phrase his feelings, “could be like… the spring.”

Aichi tilts his head at him. “The spring?”

Kai breathes in deeply. They’re close enough now for Kai to smell the faint shampoo in Aichi’s hair. 

_ This is what he meant earlier,  _ he thinks, smiling. _He smells nice._

“Yeah. The spring… holds new promise. New birth, out of the coldness of winter. Blooming out of warmth.” 

“I never realized you were so poetic, Kai.”

It’s a gentle teasing, but it makes Kai’s face heat up regardless. He stops and turns to Aichi, smile softening. 

“Aichi, I… I could never be happier than I am right now.”

“Really?” Aichi’s smile matches his. 

“Really.” Kai picks up Aichi’s hand and brings it to his face, bending to meet it. His lips press against the soft, cold skin.

He doesn’t want to let go.

“Kai…” Aichi murmurs. 

“When the promised spring arrives, I’ll be with you.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

Aichi steps forward, burying his face in Kai’s chest as his arms wrap around Kai’s waist. Without hesitation, Kai held Aichi close by the shoulders, breathing him in, revelling in the feeling of holding Aichi in his arms the way he’d only longed for in his dreams. 

He had longed to hold Aichi, but…

“Kai?”

“Mm?”

Aichi nestles his head in the crook of Kai’s neck. “I prayed for this, you know. Earlier.”

“For this?”

“For us to… to be together. It was my dream for… ah, this is embarrassing…” 

“I think the two of us are past embarrassment now, Aichi.”

Aichi laughs into Kai’s neck as he pulls his hand from around Kai’s waist and places it on Kai’s chest. There’s no way to slow his thrumming heartbeat. Judging by the smile on Aichi’s face as he closes his eyes, Aichi feels it. 

“I wanted for us to become… boyfriends?” 

Kai feels Aichi frown. He’s not sure initially if it’s because his heart nearly stopped beating.

“Though that’s not a complete term, I think.”

The semantics of what their relationship was, or what it could even be, had never occurred to Kai. But he had to agree.  _ Boyfriend  _ seems almost juvenile. Temporary. A fleeting relationship, to be replaced by someone else along the road.  _ Mate  _ seems too casual. Miwa is his mate, as is Tokura and Kamui and Ishida. Aichi is more than that. 

“Partner.”

Aichi repeats the word. “I like that.”

_ Partners.  _

Kai places his hand on Aichi’s face again, tilting his chin upward. “I’d spent so long thinking i was going to be alone that I never thought… I’d have this. With you.”

Tears form at the corners of Aichi’s eyes, but this time, there is no sadness there. 

They reach the unspoken agreement to close the gap between them, lips pressed together in a gentle kiss that has Kai’s heart threatening to escape its cage and his mouth numb; unsure of what to do with his hands, he cups Aichi’s face and presses him closer. Aichi smiles into it as he wraps his arms around Kai’s shoulders, one hand running up the base of Kai’s neck to tangle in his hair. 

Aichi pulls back enough to look Kai in the face. Brushes Kai’s bangs from his eyes. Smiles. Kai burns that image of Aichi into his heart. “Our spring is here, Kai. Let’s bloom together.”

**Author's Note:**

> based loosely on this pixiv doujin that I fell madly in love with: https://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=manga&illust_id=41956586 
> 
> (I hope it isn't odd to write fic based off a doujin, but here I am, I suppose.)


End file.
